Well, in late-breaking and OMG news, it turns out that acetone, delivered by eyedropper makes gorilla glue come apart! Yesterday I gave that old messed-up project to my co-worker as reported and today he asked me to stop by his desk when I had the chance. He had successfully removed the badly glued pieces. Sanding or perhaps a little more acetone would remove the remaining glue and I have to say the wood looked none the worse for wear. It'll take off finish too but this was unfinished. He did say it takes patience. I don't know exactly what the process is yet.
Anyway, I think I am going to try this route. We'll have to take off the gable ornament and half the roof to get to the offending side wall but if that comes off OK, I'll just need to remake that one piece - at least if the ornamental pieces come off OK too. Then it is just reassembly of those pieces and refinishing. At the end of the day, if it doesn't work, I am still no worse off than starting over.
A word of warning (from my co-worker - who is obviously brilliant!). Don't use finger nail polish remover without checking ingredients. That often has moisturizer included because of the drying effects of acetone. That would probably do something funky to the wood. Also, he said that the fumes or whatever from acetone are heavier than air and highly flammable. You need to be sure to be in a very well ventilated area.
This won't be happening for at least a few days but I'll let you know how it goes.
FWIW, I do understand that mistakes happen. I just get really frustrated with myself when it is a major project that gets screwed up because I did something dramatically stupid. But, as several of you have said, it is how we learn. Likely I will get a rescue on this though possibly not. Either way, I think it is definitely a "teachable moment." If I didn't think so, I wouldn't have shared the story to begin with.
Anyway, with luck I will have a follow up on how things are going by sometime next week.
